Jim Russell
|country= USA |number= 1 |career= 2004-present |rookie= 2004 |team= |formerteam= David Russell Motorsports |titles= 0 |poles= 8 |wins= 5 |firstattempt= |firstrace= 2003 Round of Virginia |firstwin= 2005 Round of Dover |lastwin= 2009 Round of Central Russia |lastrace= 2011 Round of Quincy |lastattempt=2011 Cleveland Grand Prix |twitter= @JimRussellDriver |}} Jim Russell (Born February 18th, 1980 in Terre Haute, Indiana) is a PCC Cup Series and SCRA Diamond Stocks competitor. Russell is the son of two-time PCC Cup Series champion David Russell. PCC Cup Series Jim Russell made his debut driving the #01 Castrol Ford Taurus for David Russell Motorsports at Martinsville Speedway in 2003. Russell qualified last in a field of 42, but worked his way into the top-15 late before electrical issues relegated him to 31st, 44 laps down to the race winner. Russell would also qualify for Atlanta and Homestead later in the season, but did not make an impression. Russell would inherit primary driving duties at his father's team in 2004, running his father's #1 Castrol Ford for Rookie of the Year. Russell qualified on the pole at Pocono and finished in the top-five 3 times en-route to a 15th place finish in the standings. The next season, Russell managed to capture his first career PCC Cup Series win at Dover after leading the final 3 laps on a fuel gamble. Russell would win again later in the season at Rockingham, a race he won the pole for. 2005 would ultimately be Russell's finest season, finishing 7th in the championship with two wins and a pole. The next season, Russell netted another win at the infamous Rockingham Jump Course, but that win was the one bright spot of his season and he finished 25th in the standings. In 2007, Jim Russell did not win a race or a pole but brought the car home consistently within the top-15, netting an 11th place finish in the standings. 2008 brought three poles and a win at Watkins Glen, but more inconsistency relegated Russell down to 32nd in the standings. Russell failed to finish 17 times over 36 races, often getting caught up in crashes or suffering from mechanical failures. After 2008, Castrol terminated their partnership with the team and Interstate Batteries signed for a multi-year deal, but this change would not increase performance. In 2009, Jim Russell failed to qualify for two races, marking the first time in his career that he failed to qualify. He would also drop two places in the standings down to 34th, but managed to eke out a win in the 2009 Round of Central Russia. Russell's final win in the PCC Cup Series would come on a pit-road gamble under caution early in the race, and Russell would hold off Bob Stephans and Anthony Griffith for the final 34 laps to triumph at the Uralring. In spite of this downturn in performance, Russell would stay with the team. 2010 was more of a return to form, with one pole and several top-10 runs to a 23rd place in the points standings. 2011 started extremely poorly for the #1 team, with Russell failing to qualify for the first three races of the season. In his first start of the year, Russell only qualified 39th and finished 41st after being involved in an accident a third of the way through the race. This did start a streak of qualifications, and the #1 car qualified for three of the next four races. However, after the 2011 Round of Quincy, Jim Russell failed to qualify for every event for the rest of the season. After failing to qualify for the season-ending Cleveland Grand Prix, Jim Russell announced his retirement from PCC Cup Series competition. SCRA Diamond Stocks With the rise of the SCRA Diamond Stocks and the 2012 Sunshine State 500, Jim Russell saw it as a ticket to re-enter PCC Cup Series competition. Russell entered the #1 Interstate Batteries Ford he ran in the 2011 PCC Cup Series season and qualified 8th. Russell kept his car mostly clean all day and brought the car home in 7th place. Category:PCC Cup Series drivers Category:SCRA Diamond Stocks drivers Category:Drivers from Indiana Category:Drivers from the United States